Treatment at NCT

All necessary measures concerning the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer are carried out or organized at the Thoraxklinik with the highest degree of competence and at a state-of-the-art level. The best possible treatment for each individual patient is determined in daily interdisciplinary case conferences (tumor board meetings), in which the decision makers (chief and senior physicians) of the involved specialties take part. The Thoraxklinik was one of the first certified lung cancer centers in Germany. Moreover, we make use of the innovative diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities available through cooperation with NCT, DKFZ and Heidelberg University Hospital. Thus the "Heidelberger Zentrum für Personalisierte Onkologie" (HIPO, Heidelberg Center for Personalized Oncology) is able to perform a comprehensive analysis of molecular changes that goes far beyond conventional molecular pathological analysis—and can, in a specifically designed molecular tumor board meeting, then recommend a treatment that is specially tailored for each individual case.

Our ultimate goal is to cure the disease. If this is not possible, then we aim to achieve the best possible quality of life and stabilization of the disease. Here again, we offer you a comprehensive concept for treatment, consultation, and care. Whenever it may be helpful, stress-relieving and advisable, we integrate components of palliative medicine or even comprehensive palliative medical care (outpatient/inpatient) in our treatment concept.

With regard to tissue diagnostics/cytological diagnostics, we have the entire range of the most modern molecular pathological diagnostics at our disposal. This includes multiplex analysis with NGS (next-generation sequencing); i. e., the presence of all imaginable changes relevant to treatment is analyzed simultaneously in a single tissue sample.

Therapeutic procedures

In cooperation with both national and international partners, the hospital pursues the evolution from concept to diagnostics and treatment of chest tumors and leads the way in the development and implementation of the latest therapeutic approaches. This includes the treatments mentioned above, as well as the continued development of the classical systemic treatments (chemotherapy, antibody therapy, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, immunotherapeutic approaches).